Turning down your hometown team on national television in a self-serving special called The Decision? Former Cavalier LeBron James should know better.
UPDATED: 9:52 p.m.
One disappointed fan -- Thomas Johnson of Bridgeport, Conn. -- was prepared to express his opinion after LeBron James' announcement on Thursday night.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Maybe this happens when you get too much, too soon. Maybe it happens when you forget where you came from, or what you mean to the people of Northeast Ohio.
But LeBron James should feel a sense of shame and pain for putting together a self-serving ESPN special to inform the world that he no longer intends to play for the Cavaliers. To sharpen the insult, he titled his switch to the Miami Heat as "The Decision."
Yes, that's just like The Fumble, The Drive, The Move, The Shot and other awful moments in the history of Cleveland sports -- and he picked the name?
Doesn't anyone in the James camp have a clue of what people back home will think? Doesn't anyone care? Of if they mentioned to James, doesn't he get it?
Twenty-five year-olds are usually not the most mature people on the planet. Add in becoming worth $100 million at 18 and a global sports icon a few years later, and perhaps James was building up to this crass, sad moment. He lives in a celebrity bubble where it's very difficult to see any situation except through his own eyes, with his own sense of entitlement.
And yes, James is entitled to become a free agent.
He can sign with Cavs, the Bulls or anywhere else. But don't make the claim that Miami with a made-for-TV team in Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and a no room in the salary cap for much more than some of James' old St. Vincent-St. Mary teammates is purely about winning.
It's hype. It's sizzle. It's about his brand name.
But it's not the best basketball situation.
Of the teams with salary cap room to sign James, Chicago has the deepest roster. New Jersey has some intriguing young players. The Cavs have won 61 and 66 games in the last two seasons with James, and would be a contender again in the Eastern Conference if he had returned.
Yes, James is free to go to Miami. He's free to market himself on ESPN. But fans in his hometown also are free to say that he never should have embarrassed them.
They are free to be hurt, because the Cavaliers could have paid him more than any other team. They also have spent more and won more in the last three years than any of main contenders for his services. It's a lot easier to dump contracts and lose games than to keep adding veterans and fat contracts while chasing a title, which the Cavs have done.
The fans also are free to wonder what happened to the guy who accepted his first MVP award at his old St. Vincent-St. Mary gym, the next at the University of Akron -- and both times, talking so warmly and sincerely about being at home.
James is a remarkable basketball talent. He has wisely stayed out of legal trouble, and generally said and done the right things when in the public spotlight. He leaves as the greatest player in franchise history, and leading the Cavs to their only NBA Finals appearance back in 2007.
Never was basketball more fun for Cavaliers fans than during the James Era. But never could anyone have imagined a worse way for it to end than how James delivered his decision Thursday night.